I didn’t get to stay through the whole Wednesday keynote because I was presenting in the Polycom booth at 1:00 about the database we do with Polycom. But here are my notes, snippets & inspirations from what I heard….
By Dewitt Jones, Photographer and Creativity Expert, National Geography
He quoted this poem incredibly…. and I googled it to read as he was reciting….
“But yield who will to their separation,My object in living is to uniteMy avocation and my vocationAs my two eyes make one in sight.Only where love and need are one,And the work is play for mortal stakes,Is the deed ever really doneFor Heaven and the future's sakes. “http://www.themediadrome.com/content/poetry/frost_two_tramps.htm
In college Dewitt head Robert Frost recite this. Incredibly moving story…
National Geographic “celebrates what’s right with the world.”
Dewitt asked, “what are the 6 words that are your vision statement” that are your reason for getting up in the morning… Why you are doing what you are doing?
My quick off the top of my head answer sitting in the session: “bringing the world to the classroom”. What are your six words?
Not only is Dewitt Jones an incredible photography, he is also a master of words.
“connection & beauty graced by light”
“the more I celebrated the best in humankind the more I could see it”
“rivers drenched in light”
“the more I believed it, the more I could see it”
“nature was showing me incredible beauty standing just beyond the rat race”
“imagination to imaginaction”
Consider a world based on scarcity and fear vs. world based on possibility. Nature shows a perspective that transforms the ordinary to the extraordinary.
There is more than one right answer. That is the key to creativity. (showing multiple photographs of the same thing)
What are the “more than one right answers” for videoconferencing? What is the next right answer?
Everyday we should ask for the next right answer – “not in terror but comfortably”.
“reframe problems into opportunities”
He told about taking pictures in British Columbia. Seeing a field of dandelions. Seemed like nothing. Intended to come back but not in time. Came back to just “puffballs”. Lots of puffballs. Started taking pictures from all angles. An incredible photo from under a dandelion “puffball” looking directly into the sun & the sun sparkles through the “puffs”.
400 rolls of film for the average NG article.
He shows sequences of photos – good ones to my eye – but then the “wow” photo at the end….
Don’t ask ‘how many good ones did you get in a roll of 36?” ask “did you get it?”
How will I look for the possibilities and the next right answers? How will I look for “what’s right” in the midst of sometimes challenging experiences with annoying technologies?
